The University of Wisconsin Press is delighted to announce the addition of the prestigious academic journal Scandinavian Studies to its catalog. This exciting collaboration underscores the University of Wisconsin Press’s commitment to supporting scholarly research and fostering intellectual discourse across various disciplines.
Scandinavian Studies, a leading interdisciplinary journal in the study of the Nordic region, has been at the forefront of academic research and publication for over a century. First published in 1911, it serves as a vital platform for scholars and researchers to explore and showcase scholarship in the fields of Nordic history, literature, linguistics, art, folklore, and culture.
The inclusion of Scandinavian Studies in the University of Wisconsin Press catalog further enhances the esteemed lineup of scholarly journals offered by the press. By expanding its academic offerings, the Press continues to establish itself as a hub for exceptional research and scholarly discourse.
“We are very excited to welcome Scandinavian Studies to our journals publishing program. In addition to the prestige it brings to our program, it will also increase the synergy with our books publishing program, which has a well-established Scandinavian studies list, and a Nordic World series co-published with Aarhus University Press.” – Toni Gunnison, the University of Wisconsin Press Journals manager
Under the editorship of Dean Krouk, professor at the University of Wisconsin’s Scandinavian Studies program, as well as an international editorial board comprised of scholars in the field, Scandinavian Studies consistently publishes groundbreaking research, thought-provoking articles, and critical reviews that contribute to the collective understanding of Scandinavian culture, history, and society. By joining forces with the University of Wisconsin Press, the journal is set to expand its reach, connect with a broader academic audience, and engage in dynamic scholarly conversations.
“I am truly excited about partnering with the University of Wisconsin Press, which will allow Scandinavian Studies to reach a wider audience and further enrich the international academic discourse in our field. The journal will continue to publish original scholarship and research that explores and analyzes Nordic cultures, literature, histories, and societies.” – Dean Krouk
The University of Wisconsin Press is eager to embark on this exciting collaboration and looks forward to contributing to the growth and distribution of knowledge through the publication of Scandinavian Studies.
More information about the journal, as well as current and previous issues can be found on https://sca.uwpress.org/
But when I have to cross the bridge myself, to get to a bookstore or an occasional meeting on the other side of the river, or when I have to go through Old Town Square to visit my colleagues at the Institute for Czech Literature, I don’t feel so blessed. If I’m lucky, rain has chased the crowds away, but most of the time I can barely squeeze through the gaps between the selfie sticks and the caricature portraitists and the headsetted tour guides and the aimless admirers of romantic views.
When I’m in the right mood, it’s not even the crowds. It’s the hundreds of shops that cater to them, all lined with the same souvenirs promising to everyone the same unique mementos of the city. It’s the “Czech Food” sold for prices few Czechs can afford, prepared at a quality few Czechs can stomach. It’s the pushers of playbills for concerts of grandiose classics performed and re-performed, note for note, every day of the year. It’s the lack of grocery stores and barber shops and tailors, signs of people going about their everyday lives. I want something real.
The original publication of Folksongs of Another America (FSOAA) ambitiously combined a hardbound book, five compact disks, and a DVD in an elegant yet bulky single package weighing nearly four pounds. The years of research, writing, sound and film restoration, and overall production that underlay its existence were matched by hard-won grants to bring retail costs within an average buyer’s reach.
singing Polish mountaineer Karol Stoch, the trumpet-playing Bohemian bandleader Romy Gosz, or the German concertinist Hans “Whoopee John” Wilfahrt.
I visited the museum in Skive, Denmark, that owned some of Demant Hatt’s artworks, and the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, which held a collection of fifty of her Expressionist canvases of Sápmi, all painted when she was in her sixties and seventies. The Nordic Museum archives possessed many of her papers, including intimate letters from Turi, and her field journals from the ethnographic trips she made to Scandinavia in 1907-1916. In Copenhagen, I visited the Ethnographic Collection at the National Museum and pored through eight boxes of letters, sketchbooks, and photo albums. But not until 2008, after the Danish State Archives had put records of their holdings online, did I realize how much more there was: several dozen boxes of material by and about Demant Hatt were available. I’d suspected the woman was something of a packrat, and now I knew that for certain.
Every life has its mysteries, and one of the roles of the biographer is to dig them out through the careful reading of letters and the charting of personal connections with other historical figures. But even more important in writing a person’s life, especially a life that is both significant and neglected, is a biographical approach that looks at the context of the subject. Demant Hatt, born in 1873 in a rural village in Denmark, traveled widely in her lifetime, not only to Northern Scandinavia but to Greenland and the Caribbean. She was a self-identified New Woman, one of a generation of women artists allowed to study at the Royal Academy of Art. She took advantage of changing times to travel alone far off the beaten path and to marry a much younger man. She lived through two World Wars, including the occupation of Denmark by Germany. Her historical time period, particularly as it relates to changes in Sápmi, is a crucial aspect of her life. She came to know Sami nomadic herders during a time of transition, and she bears important witness to the injustices the Sami suffered from their neighbors and respective states and to their efforts to claim agency over their lives.
We love to hate the prison guards in films and television; their violence, racism, and inhumanity is legendary, from 
and affection to their coworkers. Wit and comic timing can deescalate a crisis and good storytelling turns that crisis into an educational story.
